Abdurraheem Green – Is Sufism a part of Islam

			What do you think about Sufi? Isn't that a part of Islam?
		

			Wow. I mean, don't ask me to give a short answer to that one. I mean, it's, you know, the problem
with Sufism is the term Sufism covers a broad range of things. There are some su these who are not
Muslim, they actually say that Sufism was before Islam, and that's actually true. It's actually
true. Okay.
		

			So Sufism is really a form of mysticism, and mysticism claims that the way to know God is
experienced through experience, right, is that you don't know God through studying and so on and
reading, which you know, God through experience. So, Muslims who fees would claim that what is
important is to do lots of worship, lots of prayers, lots of fasting, okay? Lots of you know, the
liver, very ascetic, simple life that is free from, you know, worldly trappings to make a lot of
Vicar, a lot of remembrance of gods. Okay, so this is what by and large Sufi would claim, okay,
however, actually, what the prophet Muhammad taught and what Jesus taught and what you can find in
		

			the Quran, is that no knowledge is very, very important. Indeed, the Quran says bu Rabbani, Rabbani,
and mean scholars, and it's an appeal to everybody, everyone to have knowledge, those who know or
not like those who do not know and knowledge is the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, comes
from studying. So there are two extremes here. There's the extreme of the people who study and seek
knowledge just for the sake of information that is not right. knowledge in Islam is studied so that
one can act upon it, but how do we worship God? How do we remember God? How should we behave as
believers in God, this is only going to come through knowledge and the deeper your knowledge, the
		

			deeper your study of the Quran, then the more and the greater your appreciation of that, that is
also therefore matched by worship, prayer, fasting, remembrance of God and so on and so forth. So
there is a balance here, Sufism, unfortunately, today has gone to an extreme, it's gone to an
extreme. And that's the problem with many things, just like there are some people who concentrate on
fighting, fighting, fighting, you know, yes, Islam has some rules about fighting. Yes, the early
Muslims did have to fight in order to fight for their survival and defend themselves and defend
their land. But then some people imagine that this is all that Islam is about this is the most
		

			important thing. And then they start end up doing crazy things like, you know, killing women and
children and all sorts of things that are forbidden by the religion. And they think this is
something that religion is teaching. This is the problem. This is extremism, much of what is Sufism
is also a type of extremism. Okay? It's but it's in another direction. Okay, where they have gone to
extremes in asceticism in, you know, making Vicar and even inventing things and doing crazy things
like, you know, dancing around and twirling and, you know, getting to ecstatic states. And, you
know, like, if you could imagine the Prophet Mohammed and his companions, right, twirling around in
		

			the masjid and getting to, you know, ecstatic states and this is not the religion, the religion is
the beautiful middle way, you see, so we should avoid, we should not be extremists at all. In fact,
the prophet Mohammed may God's peace and blessings be upon him, avoided that. So if by Sufism, we
mean to remember God to leave a simple life to do worship 100 there's nothing wrong with that. But
we do have to be aware of people who call themselves trophies, but they sell another extreme version
of Islam. We really need to tread the middle path, and that is the Serato monster team. And that is
the way that leads to Allah subhanho wa Taala. The evening nurtures olufemi alone
		

			Rahim